It’s a story about an extended family of community service volunteers with ties to the Lehigh Valley, and the patriarch of that family, Raymond Alercia.

But Haiti is where Alercia’s community service has made the most difference, and it’s where his mind drifts when he thinks back on the past 10 years.

Alercia volunteers as a cook at the Easton Boys and Girls Club. He's working with his daughter, Stephanie Grassia, and club director Dean Young to bring the club a new kitchen setup.

“They're all engaged,” Young said of Alerica's family. “It's that passion that they bring to the table that makes me want to celebrate their touch from here to Haiti.”

Currently, the club cannot make hot meals, only snacks. Alercia knows he's looking at an expensive project. The kitchen at his favorite church, the First Presbyterian Church in Bloomsbury, cost more than $30,000 to build, he said.

But this is a man whose name adorns a hospital in Haiti. This is a man who was born on a farm in North Carolina and got his high school equivalency certificate just three years ago at the age of 63.

Alercia's story is long and complex. It includes detours in other parts of the country, connections with family members in the Lehigh Valley, working as a cook, a plumber and a security officer for Securitas.

Perhaps the most important part of his recent life came in November 2000 when he learned his heart was so damaged he might not make it to Christmas. He spent the next three years in and out of hospitals for conjunctive heart disease.

In 2003, Alercia visited a church retreat where he met Joseph Delva of Doorway to Peace. After prayer sessions with Delva, Alercia said, his heart function leaped from an average of 8 to 12 percent up to 24.5 percent, and it wasn't long before he followed Delva's missionary group to Haiti to begin his work there.

The school had 12 students when Alercia first visited. After 10 years, there are 120 students, eight teachers, a headmaster and a registered head nurse.

Then, of course, there is the medical center. Most of the money was raised by Alercia. He got used to flying with duffel bags full of pounds of donated supplies while working on it.

“It's a legacy for my family,” Alercia said.

It hasn't been easy.

The worst thing was the earthquake in 2010. The school lost one of its teachers to the earthquake and many of the students were affected in one way or another.

But Alercia doesn't tire. He's a perpetual fundraiser. Even while working on the kitchen for the Easton club, he's thinking of what can be done in Haiti. He wants to see a community church built there, and, though he admitted he wasn't sure if he'd be alive to see it, he knows the young people left without parents by the earthquake, other natural disasters and simple fate deserve an orphanage.

The school, though, may be the most important thing. The advice he gave to one Haitian sums it up: “Get a good education and pass it on to your fellow Haitians,” Alercia said. “That's the only way they're going to climb above.”

Since beginning to volunteer his time for the Boys and Girls Club, he has taught the children about life in Haiti, its ups and downs, its problems and promises. He also prepared a Haitian-style meal for the kids Friday night.

Haitian food is not too different than the Southern food he grew up with, he said. It includes beans, rice and cornbread.

To learn more about Alercia's efforts in Haiti or to donate to his cause, check out the Doorway to Peace's Haiti website, dtphaiti.org.